


All My Choices Lead Me To You

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Magic has consequences, Podfic Welcome, Self-Sacrifice, Takes Place Between Seasons Three And Four, ends happily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: “Just— just hang on,” Zolf says, dragging his gaze over to Wilde’s face, to the too pale skin, the flecks of blood on his lips that are being washed away by the rain, to his eyes, trained on Zolf and glassy with pain. “Oscar—“ And isn’t it funny how Zolf rarely calls the man by his first name instead of his surname, not that he minds it. “Oscar, just hang on, I— you’re— you’re going to be….”Fine, is what Zolf should say, and what he can’t say. Wilde has at least one punctured lung from the sound of it, and those damn tridents do as nearly much damage going out as going in. Without a spell or a potion on hand to heal him immediately, there’s nothing Zolf can do.No. Not nothing.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 22
Kudos: 164





	All My Choices Lead Me To You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kristsune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristsune/gifts).



> So I asked @kristsune to send me a bunch of prompt memes to distract myself, from, you know, the world, and ended up picking out a bunch of tropes from those, so this is for them. <3 I hope it suits!

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the constant storms off the coast stir up things from the depths of the sea, monsters of scale and tentacle and too many mouths and too many eyes, creatures who sing with voices both beautiful and terrible, who wield weapons made of magic and coral that that cause almost as much damage coming out as they do going in. The constant, driving rain must be as good as the sea to them, for they do not falter when they rise out of the surf and slither on to the shore, their gils flaring brightly in the grey and the rain, their scales glowing, some a bluish-white, others a sickly green.

For Zolf, it’s a literal nightmare of a fight, too many enemies, not enough people to fight them, just the rest of Wilde’s team and some of the folks from the nearby villages, people armed with fishing spears and nets and axes used for chopping wood, untrained in combat, better than nothing but only just. Zolf does the best he can with his glaive and his spells, and his best keeps others standing even as he himself is wounded, his best leaves creatures dead and bleeding on the sand to be washed away by the tide.

He wishes Sasha were here, slipping through the grey shadows and the rain with her daggers. He wishes Hamid were here, fire spells sizzling in the rain and turning the sand on the beach to glass. He… concedes that Bertie would be useful to have around during the fight, but then again so would literally anyone else with a sword and the knowledge of how to use it. He does not have any of them, just himself and a handful of trained fighters and fisherman and Wilde.

Even above the sound of shouting, above the crash of the waves and the steading hissing of rain, the wind still carries Wilde’s voice to Zolf. There are melodies to counteract the creature’s own alluring songs, satires to wound them, poems to heal the injured. As the fight drags on Wilde becomes harder to hear, his strong voice weakening, but just like Zolf, whose muscles ache and burn, whose own blood gets washed away by the wind and the sea, he does not stop.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the tide of battle turns, the monster’s numbers dwindling enough that those that survive retreat back into the waves. It’s a victory, but it’s not the sort that lends itself to celebration, no shouts of triumph sound from the beach, not when so many lay dead on the sand or drift with the sea foam on the waves. Zolf begins counting heads, looking for people he knows even as he assess the damage to himself. There’s a sluggishly bleeding wound in his side from where one of the creature’s tridents half-penetrated his armor, and his right arm, which had been grabbed by several, writhing tentacles, burns and throbs as badly as if a jellyfish had stung him, welts rising purple on his skin. If there’s poison involved, it’s either incredibly slow or he’s managed to shrug it off. Zolf hopes for the latter, because he doesn’t have anything left for magic except for the basics, spells he’s done so often they’re in the blood and bone of him. Around him people are murmuring, crying, calling out.

Zolf doesn’t hear Wilde, and that doesn’t surprise him. After a battle like that, the bard probably barely has a voice left to him. They’ll be days of tea with honey and lemon after this, days of silence followed by soft whispers. Wilde is rubbish at taking care of himself in every other regard, but his voice is as much of a weapon as Zolf’s glaive, and he takes care of it well. So it doesn’t concern Zolf that he doesn’t hear Wilde. What makes his heart beat just a little bit faster as his gaze sweeps over the beach is that he doesn’t _see_ Wilde. They _always_ find each other quickly after a fight, a practice that had turned into a habit long before either of them had admitted they had feelings for each other.

“Wilde!” Zolf starts walking away from the surf, feet slipping slightly in the sand. He scans the faces of those still standing, of the bodies on the ground. Suddenly he can’t remember what color shirt Wilde had put on this morning, whether it had been white or grey or blue. Had he pulled on his coat as they had run out the door? His coat was brown, it’d be darker than the sand at least, easier to spot if he was lying hurt somewhere.

“Wilde!” Zolf calls again, shielding his eyes against the rain. There’s a black shape not too far away from him, dark blood clotting in the sand, tentacles still twitching even after death. The creature’s white coral trident is sticking out of the sand nearby, except… except the trident is moving ever so slightly, rising and falling as if with someone’s breath. He can make out other colors as well, the more he strain his eyes. Red blood. The soft blue of the shirt Wilde had put on this morning. Zolf remembers it now, how he had watched Wilde dress as he himself had enjoyed the comfort of bed for a few more minutes, thinking of how the blue of the shirt had brought out the color of Wilde’s eyes, how he had admonished himself just a little for being so sentimental.

Zolf doesn’t remember crossing the distance between himself and Wilde at all. One moment Zolf is standing and shielding his eyes against the rain, the next he’s on his knees next to Wilde, as if by magic. For a moment all he can see is the trident buried in Wilde’s chest, all he can hear is the terrible, bubbling gasps as Wilde tries to breathe. Out of reflex, Zolf reaches for the place on his belt where a healing potion would be if he had one, only for his fingers to find nothing. They’d used the last one a week ago, and getting supplies to the island takes longer and longer these days.

“Just— just hang on,” Zolf says, dragging his gaze over to Wilde’s face, to the too pale skin, the flecks of blood on his lips that are being washed away by the rain, to his eyes, trained on Zolf and glassy with pain. “Oscar—“ And isn’t it funny how Zolf rarely calls the man by his first name instead of his surname, not that he minds it. “Oscar, just hang on, I— you’re— you’re going to be….” _Fine_ , is what Zolf should say, and what he can’t say. Wilde has at least one punctured lung from the sound of it, and those damn tridents do as nearly much damage going out as going in. Without a spell or a potion on hand to heal him immediately, there’s nothing Zolf can do.

No. Not nothing.

Zolf has heard stories, some framed as cautionary tales, others told with reverence, tales of great sacrifice. There have been those who dared to ask their gods for more power than what they had been given to perform some great task, those that had been granted the dangerous touch of the divine. Some of them had even survived being given such a gift, if the stories were to be believed, but the stories of those who survived were few. There were more tales that ended in death, followers of Apollo burning from the inside out with light as bright as the sun, clerics of Poseidon drowning on dry land, acolytes of Aphrodite dissolving into sea foam. But all the stories had one thing in common, even the ones that ended in death. The power that had been asked for had been granted, and put to good purpose. The last prayer, for when you had nothing left of yourself to give.

“You’re going to be fine,” Zolf says to Wilde. He wishes he had time to say more, to press what might well be one last kiss to Wilde’s forehead, but the terrible sound of Wilde’s labored breathing, the blood on his lips with every bubbling exhale is a grisly clock that measure time in seconds, not minutes. Instead, Zolf turns his face up towards the sky, to the clouds and the rain. Even in this moment it feels wrong to bow his head, to direct his words downward.

“Listen!” Zolf shouts into the wind. “I don’t know your name, or if you’re even a god, but power comes from somewhere! It doesn’t come free! I know that!” He slaps a hand against his chest, hard enough that he feels it even through his armor. “All I have to pay with is myself, and that’s a price I’m willing to pay! Plea—“

Power slams into Zolf like storm winds filling a sail, like a wave smashing a boat against a rocky shore, so sudden that for a moment all Zolf can do is stare unblinking up into the rain, lips frozen around the word _please_. There’s a mineral taste in his mouth that reminds him of the waters of the Severn river, a ringing in his ears that sounds metallic, like chains rattling together, breaking apart. There is pain, raw divine magic bursting through channels that have grown along with Zolf, that had been made to handle only so much in a day and no more.

Wilde makes a sound, a terrible rattling wheeze, and Zolf’s paralysis breaks. He grabs the trident sticking out of Wilde, braces himself and _pulls_ , feeling the coral bite into his hands, hearing the terrible sound of flesh tearing as Wilde’s back arches off the sand. There’s no time to be gentle, there’s no time at all, and Zolf slaps both his hands over the holes in Wilde’s chest, pushing the power he’s been given into the wound as Wilde convulses, as warm blood spills over Zolf’s hands.

Zolf feels the magic being pulled out of him by the force of Wilde’s need, by the strength of Zolf’s desperation to save him. It hurts like nothing Zolf has ever felt in his life, it feels like bits of him are being torn away and leaving on the tide of magic coursing through him, and it must be hurting Wilde as well because Wilde is screaming. Wilde is screaming and that means he can _breathe_. Wilde has reached up and is clutching at Zolf’s arm with a grip like iron and that means he has the strength to do so. Zolf feels the flesh knit together under his hands as the last of the borrowed magic leaves him and his jaw is clenched in a pained smile because it _worked_ and Wilde is _alive_ and—

Zolf feels his arms start to tremble at the effort of holding him up only for an instant before they give out on him entirely, leaving him sprawled across Wilde’s chest. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but he must have done, because everything is dark. He can hear Wilde’s heart beating quickly and steadily under his ear even as Zolf’s own heart stutters and lurches in his chest, hear the air rushing into and out of Wilde’s lungs even as Zolf’s own breathing begins to slow.

_Thank you_ , Zolf thinks at whatever force had given him the power to do this one last thing, if it _is_ his last. Maybe he’s dying. Maybe he’s just falling asleep.

Wilde is trying to say something, his voice a broken whisper.

_Shhhh_ , Zolf thinks fondly. _Tea for you when you get home. Tea with honey and…_

_———_

There’s the sound of water lapping gently against wood.

It’s a sound that Zolf has been hearing on and off for some time now, soothing enough that it keeps lulling him back to sleep. He’s always slept better around water, whether it had been naps by the river at home, or swaying in a hammock aboard a ship, first in the navy and then as a pirate. The ever-present rain in Japan had made Zolf feel constantly drowsy until he had gotten used to it, and some mornings it was harder than others not to give in to the urge to lie in bed and listen to the water drumming on the roof. Not that Wilde ever lets him stay in bed _too_ long.

There’s sun on his face, bright and warm, and the breeze that blows is warm as well. Zolf hears the familiar snap of wind filling a sail. It’s a good sound, as good as the creaking of wood underneath him. He shifts his weight slightly, thinking about opening his eyes. Maybe he will, in a minute. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy the sun for a moment more, to relish the warmth of it on his face, his arms, his legs—

Zolf’s eyes snap open as he scrabbles backwards along the bottom of the boat, staring at his long lost (one of them lost longer ago than the other) honest to gods flesh and blood legs, then swearing as he hits the stern.He stands up and looks wildly at his surroundings, his brain suddenly putting all the pieces together. Boat. Water. Legs.

“I’ve had this dream before!” Zolf yells at the sky. “I’m done with you, remember?”

There’s no reply, but there hadn’t been in the other dreams either, that doesn’t mean anything. Poseidon has never been a talkative god. Zolf looks around at the bottom of the boat, ready to throw the first trident he sees over the side, and good riddance to it. Instead, he sees a fishing pole.

Zolf stares down at the fishing pole for a very long time, finds himself reaching for it, then slowly draws his hand back. He realizes suddenly that the breeze that fills the boat’s sails doesn’t smell like salt at all, and when he makes himself look up and look past the water, he can see the shore on either side of him, trees lining the riverbank, their leaves soft watercolor smudges against the sky.

Zolf knows this river, the river Severn, grew up near this river, _loves_ this river, which had awakened his passion for sailing, which had filled his heart in a way that rocks in the depths of the earth had not. He had often been admonished when he had been younger for sneaking down to the river to swim or fish or…. He takes a closer look at the boat he’s in and starts chuckling.

“Don’t know how I didn’t recognize you right away,” Zolf says, giving the side of the boat an affectionate pat. “Maybe it’s because you’re not leaking like a sieve and full of splinters besides.” He looks up at the sail, a patchwork of a thing. He remembers scavenging that cloth, and all the long nights spent sewing it.The stitches look less crooked here. “Still, you were the first proper boat I ever made, not counting all the rafts that sank.” He looks up at the sky, which is the perfect blue sky of early summer.

“Is this it, then?” Zolf asks. That had been his dream once, before he had started to think about joining the Navy, to do nothing all day but fish, to sail all the way down to the ocean and out into the world beyond. Was there a sea to sail to here? Surely there was. “Is this what comes next?”

The breeze picks up, swirling around him. _You are between. You are free to choose._ It’s a whisper that sounds like the wind, like water moving swiftly over rocks, like chains breaking. The words echo in his bones and mind and heart, in the place where his magic dwells.

Zolf inhales sharply, looking around for the source of the voice, not surprised when he doesn’t see anyone. “Who are you?” He asks the air around him. “Do you have a name?”

There is only the sound of wind blowing, of water moving, of chains breaking, but those sounds are almost words. _The Unmastered Wind. The Untamed River. The Unbound Chain._

“Right,” Zolf says. “That’s a bit of a mouthful. You _talk_ to me at least, that’s more than I can say for Poseidon. So thank you for that. And what you gave me there, on the beach, and for everything before that.”

There’s no response to that, not in words, but the breeze swirls warm around him, ruffling his beard and blowing through his hair.

“You said I had a choice,” Zolf says. “That’s more than he gave me, once upon a time. So thank you for that too.”

_Death or life,_ says the breeze in a whisper. _Sail or swim,_ chuckles the water. _Easy or hard,_ the broken chains sing.

It _is_ a choice, and at the same time it’s no choice at all. Zolf finds himself smiling a ghost of his childhood smile as he races across the deck and dives into the water.

The water is not cold or warm, but it’s deeper than any river that Zolf as ever known, as deep as the ocean and just as dark, with a current strong enough to to push and pull him further down than he means to go, far enough that he can’t see the surface, can’t get his bearings. A few bubbles of air escape from between his lips and hang in the dark, motionless.

Just because Zolf was given a choice doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to work to achieve the conclusion he wants. He picks a direction that feels the most like _up_ and begins to swim.

The ache in his chest begins immediately, though at least it doesn’t come with a desire to try and breathe. He stops feeling his legs next, but he’s used to that as well, and soon he’s fighting against the current with only the strength of his arms, which soon ache and burn as badly as the rest of him. Without the need to breathe, without any landmarks, just the endless, swirling water, he can’t tell how long he’s been swimming, or if he’s making any progress. Still, he forces himself to keep moving, to keep _trying._ He knows, somehow, that if he gives up, if he closes his eyes, he’ll wake up on the boat again, and this time there won’t be a choice about what comes next.

The song, when it comes, lending strength to his aching limbs and bolstering his spirit, is so different from the sound of the water through which Zolf swims that at first he doesn’t recognize it as a music. If this had been the climax of a Harrison Campbell novel, or maybe something out of one of those classical Greek stories that Hamid had so loved, the voice that sang would have been pure and clear, each note perfect and true. Instead, what Zolf hears is a voice that wavers and cracks, notes choked off suddenly, as if the singer did not have the strength or breath to sustain them. Zolf knows immediately who is singing, but it takes him a moment to recognize the song. It’s a song Wilde last sang to him when Zolf was having a very dark night, when the sound of the rain hadn’t been enough to drown out the loudness of his thoughts, when he had been too sad even to cry. It’s a song about mourning lost friends while celebrating the ones you still have, about not letting the past prevent you from having a present, about how a heart can still go on loving, even after it’s been broken. It’s a song about sorrow. It’s a song about hope.

There’s light above him now on the surface of the water, not the dazzling gleam of sunlight, more like the glow of lamplight against closed eyes. Zolf swims towards that faint light, towards that broken voice, and reaches out—

———

Everything hurts. Everything hurts and Zolf feels as weak as a kitten and as hollow as a tree scorched by lightning, as if the power he had called for has burned him from the inside out, leaving behind a Zolf shaped husk. For a moment all he can do is lay in bed and listen to the rain drumming on the roof, watch the lamplight flicker against his closed eyelids, feel Wilde’s hand on top of his own. Then he hears the bard trying to sing, feels magic prickle against his skin and dissipate as he runs out of breath, as his voice breaks. Zolf winces at the sound and opens his eyes.

Wilde looks terrible, eyes red from weeping and bruised from lack of sleep, the dark circles turned into deep shadows against skin that is too pale. Zolf watches as Wilde takes another, short, shaky breath and opens his mouth again, no doubt to try and coax another melody from it.

“No more of that,” Zolf tells him, his own voice weak, barely above a whisper.

Wilde’s eyes go wide as he closes his mouth with a snap, head turning to look at Zolf so fast that Zolf swears he hears the man’s neck creak in protest. Zolf tries to sit up and fails utterly to do so, so he settles for squeezing Wilde’s hand as best he can. “Hey.”

When Wilde opens his mouth again it’s to yell, though Zolf supposes it’s not actually yelling if there’s barely any sound to speak of. There’s an awful lot of hand waving though, which is getting the point across to Zolf just fine, even if his lip reading skills are poor. He catches the words, ‘almost died,’ and ‘don’t ever,’ before Wilde stops, gasping, one hand against his chest.

For a moment Zolf is back in the rain, kneeling on the sand, listening to Wilde trying desperately to breathe. Zolf lifts a hand, curling it weakly around Wilde’s wrist, and tugs. “Don’t,” Zolf says. “C’mere.”

There’s no strength in Zolf’s gesture, but Wilde moves towards Zolf anyway, ends up tucked awkwardly against his chest. Zolf can still feel the bard’s lips moving, feel tears soaking into the blankets covering him and he can’t help but feel terribly fond of this dramatic, ridiculous man.

“Hush,” Zolf whispers, and if a few tears manage to escape from his eyes when he closes them, well, it’s just him and Wilde in the room after all. “I’m here. I’m here.”

———

Days pass in the soft, blurry way that days do when a person is recovering from illness or injury. Wilde, for his part, manages to rest his voice, and over the days and nights that follow, Zolf hears Wilde’s breathing go from short and pained to something more closely resembling normal. Zolf himself has been, he feels, much slower to recover, that hollow, drained feeling still clinging to him, not fading nearly quick enough for his liking, though he’s grateful to even be alive at all.

One morning Zolf wakes to the sound of Wilde coughing and instinctively rolls over and puts a hand against his chest, muttering a spell before he’s even fully awake. The magic flows out of him, leaving a sort of mental ache behind, like he’s using a strained muscle that hasn’t fully healed yet.

“I’m fine,” Wilde says quietly, but Zolf notes the relief in his tone. “Thank you though.” He places a hand over Zolf’s own. Underneath his palm, Zolf can feel the scars on Wilde’s chest, round and ragged things. The area around the scars is slightly paler than the surrounding skin, and Zolf can sometimes catch a glimpse of his own handprint against Wilde’s chest if the lighting is right. He wonders if that will fade in time.

“A cough is a small price to pay for being alive,” Wilde says very softly. “Especially when I thought I was going to lose something much greater.”

Zolf can feel himself blushing and he ducks his head so that he doesn’t have to look Wilde in the eye. They haven’t talked about what happened, not really. “I’d do it again,” he says firmly.

Wilde sighs. “I know,” he says. “You would. It’s part of who you are, valuing the lives of others over your own.” He rubs a thumb over the back of Zolf’s hand. “If the situation had been reversed, if it had been you on the sand, bleeding out, I—“

“It’s all right,” Zolf says quickly. “I would have understood that you couldn’t have—“

“You misunderstand,” Wilde says, and something in his tone makes Zolf look up at him. His mouth is set in a hard line, except for where the scar on his face makes one corner twist up. “There’s stories about it. Of course, with bards, there’s stories about _everything_ , but the tales have enough in common to make me think they’re true. There’s so many names for it. The denouement, the curtain call, the final bow. One last performance, the one you put your whole heart and soul into….”

Zolf stares at Wilde, and now he’s the one who turns his face away. Zolf thinks of Wilde’s song, the words that had leant him strength cracked and broken and _desperate._ “Oscar.”

“You were unconscious for three days,” Wilde whispers. “I could _feel_ you slipping away, and I— I couldn’t, my voice kept breaking, the magic wouldn’t— but I _tried_. I couldn’t just— couldn’t lose anyone else.”

“Oscar.” Zolf reaches up, cups the side of Wilde’s face, turns his gaze back towards him. “I heard you. When I wasn’t even sure I was going the right way, when it was getting so hard to keep going, I _heard_ you. I made the choice to come back, but you’re the one who helped me _get_ here, magic or not.”

They kiss then, the sort of trembling, desperate kiss that leads to more kisses, to whispers, to holding each other close as if to reassure themselves that the other person wasn’t going anywhere.

_I’d make the same choice again_ , Zolf thinks to himself, to the place the magic comes from, to Wilde.

There’s no answer but the sound of the wind and rain outside, the feel of Wilde, warm in his arms. That’s all right. That’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write about what Zolf gets his power from these days for awhile now, *especially* since it turns out he's got the Liberation Domain. (As far as I can tell at any rate, he activates Freedom's Call in episode 137 and that is very much a Liberation Domain power.) What we have is what freedom sounds/feels like to Zolf. A good wind, the sound of water, the breaking of chains.
> 
> I’m [angel-ascending](http://angel-ascending.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr and [angel_in_ink](http://twitter.com/angel_in_ink) over on Twitter if y’all want to stop by and say hi!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[ART] All My Choices Lead Me To You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323843) by [areyouokaypanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyouokaypanda/pseuds/areyouokaypanda)
  * [I've run out of dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24049120) by [HistoriaGloria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HistoriaGloria/pseuds/HistoriaGloria)




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